On Thursday, search engine giant Google Inc announced its investigation over reports that YouTube, its video-sharing website, has been blocked in Twitter. The Guardian said Google's announcement came in days after the Turkey also blocked Twitter.
The UK newspaper cited an unnamed source, who told Reuters that the Turkish government resorted to block YouTube when voice recordings allegedly of top senior officials who were discussing about conducting a military operation in Syria. The country has allegedly explained the action to block the website as needed to safeguard national security, the source have said, and that it talking with YouTube to have the ban lifted if the latter remove the offensive content.
In a statement emailed to the Guardian, Google said, "We're seeing reports that some users are not able to access YouTube in Turkey. There is no technical issue on our side and we're looking into the situation."
Google's move follows the attempt of the Turkish government to contain evidence that would support claims that its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is involved in corruption allegations. The government had already blocked microblogging site Twitter on Friday, creating public outcry. The Guardian said social media is widely used in Turkey, and several anonymous individuals or groups have resorted to post content that would seek to reveal and subsequently prove wrongdoing by government officials in Turkey. The block on Twitter came just hours after Erdogan has promised to make sure that Twitter is inaccessible in Turkey as it was a security threat and decided to not cooperate with authorities.
On Wednesday, a local court has issued a ruling that would overturn the block, but there is still the question whether the Turkish government will comply with the judicial order.
Turkish justice minister Bekir Bozdag said, "All the TIB (Telecommunications Authority) is doing right now is to comply with court decisions. I wonder about the administrative court's reasoning. We will see how they came to the conclusion that an institution complying with a court order acts unconstitutionally."
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